Book of 1 Timothy - Ch. 2, v. 8

Okay, good morning everybody. If y 'all would like to turn to 1

Timothy chapter 2, we'll pick up right where we left off last week, moving right along in our study there.

And before, so we'll be hitting verse 8, but before we do that,

I mentioned a couple of times in weeks past that we were going to summarize these verses we've been in.

We're spending a lot of time in, just so that we don't lose sight of the full scope of what

Paul is even talking about at this point. We've been breaking it down to such a degree, it's great verse by verse is wonderful, breaking it down going word by word can be wonderful, but it is only as good as remembering what on earth the apostle or the writer is talking about, what the context is saying.

If you get too into the nitty gritty sometimes and forget to back up and remind yourselves of where you're at, then we can lose sight of some very important things.

The very specific doctrinal things the apostle gets into here, again, have a context and it's important to remember that.

And so let's just quickly do a review of these opening seven verses as we segue into verse 8.

Verse 8 is an interesting transitionary period in this section that we're in. So the entire chapter of 1

Timothy 2 is basically Paul exhorting the young elder Timothy to then go tell the rest of the churches this, specifically his church.

And so in many ways you can look at this as an exhortation to all ministers that would succeed the apostle

Paul, but of course the exhortations are broken up into some different categories.

So we have the apostle Paul talking about prayer and praying for other men specifically in verses 1 through 4.

Paul kind of takes a little parenthetical to talk about his own ministry and then he wraps it up, and that's verses 5 through 7, then he wraps it up in verse 8.

And then in verse 8 is where we transition from that exhortation into what seems like a pretty different topic from verses 9 through 15.

They are connected, but again, there is a transition that takes place in verse 8. So let's remind ourselves of where we've been before we move into some new material.

Let's start in verse 1. He says, I exhort therefore that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

Again, we're just summarizing here, so I'm going to move somewhat briskly. We broke all this down into great detail in weeks past.

We have everything recorded, of course. But Paul quickly qualifies what he means by all men in verse 1 because if he left it, that would be somewhat ambiguous.

He has someone in mind, or specifically a group of people in mind, when he is exhorting these first century

Christians to pray for them. In verse 2, he defines what he means by all men.

He says, for kings and for all that are in authority. In other words, we can't keep prayers in our tight -knit circles of family, church, family, even brothers and sisters in Christ.

Rather, it needs to expand out. We need to be thinking about those by whom the sword of righteousness is being wielded, that being the government that God instituted.

And so he tells us to pray for kings, for all that are in authority, and he mentions four specific types of prayer, four specific terms, that I believe he is simply using mainly for emphasis, but each term is pretty interesting in and of themselves.

He says, lift up supplications for all men. That's a Greek term that refers to a definite request that is being asked.

In other words, very specific prayers for these people. So we lift up supplications for them.

Then he says we lift up prayers for them, and that is kind of a more general prayer.

In other words, every kind of prayer that could be offered to God, we offer that on behalf of these kings and those that are in authority.

And then he says we lift up intercessions for these people. Intercessions is the Greek term or the

Greek term underneath the word there for intercessions is a term that Paul often uses to signify the prayers that are offered one toward another.

So in other words, they're more personal, they're more intimate in a way, they are fervent, they are urgent.

So we're not praying just generally for our leaders, but in many cases,

Paul wants us offering intercessions for them as well, something that is fervent, again, something that has some urgency behind it.

And then, of course, he also ends by saying giving of thanks.

And so we need to be reminded that being thankful, showing our gratitude is something that can't be left unchecked, as it were, for God's people.

Why should we be thankful for our pagan leaders if they are pagan? Well, we talked about it at the time, but as Brother Otis taught us, the lost world is there.

Yes, God desires them to be saved, but what about the times they're not saved? They are there to put things on the shelves for God's people.

They're there to provide for God's people so that we can live life ideally in a peaceable manner, which, of course, is in view in verse 2.

So we lift up giving of thanks to God for the leaders that he gives us. So then again, in verse 2, he mentions it's for kings, it's for those in authority.

For what purpose? That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness or holiness and with dignity.

So in other words, when we pray for our leaders, when we pray for our civil rulers, and God positively affects their hearts, positively moves them to bear their rule in a godly way, a way that's consistent with God's word, that allows

Christians to actually live in a manner that is conducive to their holiness, their growth, their sanctification.

And we get to live in peaceable times, which, of course, is something that everybody throughout time desires.

Verse 3, he goes on to say, this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. So in other words, praying for our leaders isn't just a tool or a mechanism by which we can kind of feel pious about ourselves and things of that sort.

These aren't vain prayers, in other words. It's not just a religious motion. There is intrinsic goodness in the sight of God when we do this.

It is good, it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. And then we take note that Paul brings

God's saviorhood, if you will, into the picture here. Because in verse 4, he goes on to say, who will desire or will have all men to be saved and come into the knowledge of truth?

Who are the men that he's talking about in this context? Our civil rulers. So ultimately, what

God desires is not just for us to pray for our rulers for the sake of peaceable living and things like that, but so that our rulers may be saved, experience the same grace, the same saving grace that we ourselves have experienced, so that once more, the rule that is brought to bear in the society we live in is a

Christian authority. It is one based upon the law of God. It is a Christian nation, in other words.

And he goes on in verse 5, for there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time.

So in other words, Paul gives us this amazing doctrinal teaching on salvation, specifically with Christ offering the ransom and then acting as mediator in the present tense between God and man that makes all of it even possible.

This is what is in view here and what should be offered up to our rulers, to our kings, to the civil magistrates, so that we can live in a

Christian society. And then in verse 7, he goes on and says, Whereunto I am ordained a preacher and an apostle.

I speak the truth in Christ and lie not a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and in verity, or in sincere truth.

And so, we mentioned this last week and this will end our summary here. We'll move into what we have for today.

But it's interesting to note Paul's double emphasis on him speaking truth in this verse.

He says, I speak the truth in Christ and lie not, and then he ends by saying, I do this in faith and verity, or sincere truth speaking.

And why is it that he is really trying to drive this home? Well, we touched on it last week and we'll touch on it just a little bit more again this morning.

But that is this reality that Paul is an apostle to the Gentiles. The large,

I think you could say the large majority of his Christian audience in the first century, of any of the apostles'

Christian audience in the first century, they would have been Christians, yes, but they would have been ethnic Jews. They would have been faithful Jews, some of which would have come out of Old Testament Judaism, which is to be distinct from Judaism today.

They would have come out of that believing and faithful and would have moved right into the

Christian religion that Christ established. So you had that, but then you also had some Pharisees.

You had, as Paul puts it in Titus, those of the circumcision. You had those that were approaching the law of God and things like that in a more legalistic fashion.

And though they did come to a point of genuine saving faith, they still struggled with their past with that regard.

The religion that they clung to prior to their conversion, they still had to wrestle with things.

Do they need to be circumcised? Do Gentiles that need to be saved and brought into the church, do they still need to be circumcised and things like that for any of this to even matter?

They struggled with these things. And not only did they struggle with it, but in many cases, they took issue with believing that Gentiles could actually be part of a covenant with God.

The Mosaic covenant was made strictly with the nation of Israel. Yes, proselytes could come in. Yes, Gentiles or heathen could still be saved, but that was still different from being part of the covenant people.

Moses' father -in -law Jethro, the high priest of Midian, I believe was a believer, but he wasn't necessarily under the

Mosaic covenant. He was still doing his own thing in the land of Midian, even though he did at some point come and check out

Moses and the people of Israel during the Exodus. He gave some priceless feedback or mentorship to Moses.

And so God used him in great ways, but he still wasn't under that covenant. In the new covenant, however, it is all -encompassing.

It encompasses all believers, including Gentiles. And so Paul, emphasizing in two ways the fact that he is speaking truth here is worth taking note because this was something he really had to get across to his audiences at this time.

So there's our summary, verses 1 -7, an unbelievable section on prayer and the power behind prayer and it being used as a means to an end and that desired end once more is the salvation of our rulers, of our civil magistrates so that we can live in a

Christian nation. And then he gets to verse 8, and so here's where we'll pick it up and move on from this point.

He says in verse 8, I will therefore, because of everything we just talked about, that's what therefore is there for,

I will therefore that men pray everywhere, that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting or another way you could translate that last word there is dissensions.

Now in this verse, Paul is essentially wanting to do an attitude check on the men that lead these public prayers.

Remember the context here is these aren't private prayers necessarily, although of course you can take this principle that Paul is teaching and apply that to our private prayers.

The context here is public prayer, in other words, in the service, in the worship service and things like that and that's why he chooses the wording that he chooses in verse 8.

It's specifically talking about men, the Greek term that he uses for men here isn't the generic term that can mean man or woman, but rather an

R. It's men specifically and so he's basically inserting a slight teaching here on the way the structure of leadership is supposed to work in a local church.

And so in public worship specifically, you have the men leading the prayers as well as the rest of the service.

And so he says, I will therefore that men pray everywhere and that term everywhere is interesting for a couple of reasons.

We'll break that down in just a second, but I want men to pray everywhere lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting.

And so we can see kind of the attitude that Paul is warning against and wanting that to be displaced by something else.

He doesn't want wrath, he doesn't want dissensions in these prayers. What is all this about?

Again, he's wanting to do a little bit of an attitude check on these men that lead the public prayers and the public services.

First, Paul makes a point to emphasize one more time, by the way, it's a very brief section here, but he brings several things in view in different ways multiple times.

And here he's emphasizing once again the importance of remembering the scope of God's church.

And this plays right off of what we were just talking about. This wasn't just for the Jews, this was also for believing

Gentiles. Everywhere where he says, I will therefore that men pray everywhere, that carries kind of a special implication because it's most likely a call back to what he just finished saying in verse 7 when he says,

I am a teacher of the Gentiles, of the Gentiles. So this isn't something that is reduced to the temple worship.

This isn't something that's even reduced to synagogue. This is something that is good and righteous for all believers to do of all stripes, regardless of where their place of worship is, which by the way, at this particular time, local churches would have been where?

In households. It would have been in people's homes. And this is what Paul has in view here. This same phrase, the particular words that he chooses here, this phrase structure, he uses a number of times in his epistles and in most cases it's a reference to a local church body.

And so when he says, I will therefore that men pray everywhere, I see a double, kind of a double meaning happening.

Number one, he's once again emphasizing the reality of being neither Jew nor Greek, but also at the same time emphasizing,

I want all congregations doing this. I want men leading all congregations everywhere doing this.

So as we mentioned previously, emphasizing this idea of there not being discrimination between Jews and Gentiles anymore.

That once played a role, even Jesus played off of that intentional religious discrimination as a mechanism for teaching in his own ministry.

But that was something that was done away with with the dawning of the new covenant where the, how does he put it in Ephesians, Ephesians 2 .15,

the wall of partition, I believe is the phrasing he uses, removed between Jew and Gentile.

And so there isn't this discrimination anymore. And Paul saw himself as being included in the fulfillment of all of the

Old Testament passages that related to the future salvation of the Gentiles.

Last week we looked at a number of them. I could read them really quick because just a couple of brief examples.

In Psalm 18 .49 he says, Therefore will I give thanks unto thee, O Lord, this is David talking, among the heathen, which is the same

Hebrew term you could translate Gentiles or nations, heathen, however you want to do it. And I will sing praises unto thy name.

Psalm 117 .1 says, O praise the Lord all ye nations, the same Hebrew term. Praise him all ye people.

In Isaiah 42 .6, the prophet Isaiah says, I the Lord, this is

God talking through Isaiah, I the Lord have called thee in righteousness and will hold thine hand and will keep thee and give thee for a covenant for the people for a light unto the

Gentiles. And I mentioned last week that is a very, very tiny sampling of a multitude of amazing texts in the

Old Testament prophesying about the future salvation of the Gentiles. Here's one more, and this is one of the most significant ones.

In the last book of the Old Testament, the final prophet Malachi, he was the last prophet prior to John the

Baptist arriving on the scene. He says in chapter 1, verse 11 of his prophecy,

For the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the same, my name, that being

God's, shall be great among the Gentiles. And in every place, you notice the similarity in wording there, even in the verse we just read in 1

Timothy, in every place, incense shall be offered unto my name in a pure offering, for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the

Lord of hosts. And so again, the apostle Paul knew these passages, and he saw himself as the apostle to the

Gentiles as fulfillment of these passages that he knew were there and were looking forward to something magnificent.

One more thing I'll read really quick. And you can look at this with me if you want, in John chapter 4. Jesus alludes to this as well.

A minute ago, you remember I mentioned that even Jesus would use this reality of discrimination between Jews and Gentiles, even in his own ministry, usually to bring a point across, and he used it also at times to test the faith of the person he was talking with.

So remember the woman who came to Jesus asking for healing, for salvation, for these things, and he says,

I didn't come for the Gentiles, but for the Jews. I'm paraphrasing terribly. And she said,

Lord, even the dogs lick the crumbs that fall from the table. You remember that.

And of course, Jesus turns, and salvation is hers. He proclaims her faith being great.

But the point is, what led to that? Jesus pointing out the discrimination that even she should have known, that she should have been aware.

Same thing with the woman at the well who was a Samaritan. And so he was testing these things because he knew the religious backdrop behind everything, the 400 years of darkness leading up to his arrival.

And so he knew that, but even in his teaching, you see these flickers of the fulfillment of these prophecies on the salvation of the

Gentiles. And here's a unique one. In John chapter 4, in fact, this is the woman at the well. Start at verse 21.

She says in verse 20, Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.

And then Jesus responds in verse 21 by saying, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when you shall neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem worship the

Father. You worship you know not what. We know what we worship for salvation is of the

Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the

Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit, and they that worship

Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. So you see once more, this concept of, this idea of there needing to be physical locations in order for these religious practices to take place rightly.

The temple, the mountain, the places where the patriarchs had worshiped. No, we were coming upon a day quickly.

And in fact Jesus says the hour has already come. It was already beginning to unfold at that particular time in which the temple of God would be the people themselves.

And that would include both Jew and Greek. And so, just so we don't lose sight of this, this plays a big part in Paul's theology as he is teaching through these things in 1

Timothy in this section. He's aware of the Old Testament prophecies. He is aware of Jesus' teachings.

He knows what he is doing. And he knows the battle that he's up against when he is proclaiming these truths to his brothers and sisters that are ethnic

Jews, that are Christian ethnic Jews. Even they are having issue with some of these things.

And so he's having to fight these battles to a degree. And so, Paul has already exhorted

Christians to pray for all men, including pagan kings and things like that.

Now, he makes clear that he wants men everywhere, or in other words, in every place to be doing this praying because there is now no difference between Gentile and Jew with regard to their standing before God.

So, he starts by saying, Jesus, Jesus wants you to pray for all men because he desires that all men be saved.

Talking about the very pagan rulers that they all despise, most likely, many of them would have. And he's saying, not only is that true, but I want you to be the one doing the praying.

And that will also be indiscriminate with regard to Jew and Greek. All Christians, whether you be a

Jew, whether you be a Gentile, you are going to be lifting these prayers up. And in the specific context of public worship, of course, it will be the leaders of that local congregation, the men, whether they be

Jew or Greek, that are the leaders of those congregations, lifting up these prayers. There are now churches filled everywhere with both

Jew and Gentile, and Christ is the Lord of both. This is something that Paul had to get across to his hearers.

Now he goes on from there. He says, I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands.

Now, we are already here getting a glimpse, even with this phrase alone, we are getting a glimpse into the kind of attitude that Paul desires these men to have as they lead in public prayer, in public worship.

We have to, of course, ask the question, what on earth does he mean by holy hands? Is this some kind of weird reference to purification, the washing of hands?

Of course, this played a significant role in the religion of the Pharisees where they emphasized the external over the internal.

They wanted that whitewashed tomb. They wanted that clean cup. But they never thought about the contents of the cup.

And so they had very stringent laws on hand washing and things like that. Is that what

Paul is talking about here? Lifting up holy hands or pure hands would be another way you could translate this.

It's not holy in the sense of God is holy or in separation, but more a purification type thing.

What's happening here is holy hands or pure hands is an expression that refers not to a particular type of physical hand, that would be completely missing the point, but rather, and we can gather this by what's in view of the context here, rather what he's talking about is that the lifting of holy hands in prayer is an outward appearance of what?

It is the manifestation or the display of what? A pure heart. A heart that has been made right in order to fulfill in obedience the very exhortations that Paul is giving us here.

And so when these men, in the context of public worship, public prayer, leading their congregation, lift their hands in the air to heaven, to God, praying for the civil magistrates, praying for their salvation, praying for blessings to be brought upon them so that we may live a peaceable and godly life, this is a sign to their congregation that what is within them, what is within the heart, is already in the right place and that is now in the display of the lifting of their hands in prayer.

Now, here's what's fascinating about it. The lifting up of hands was an ancient religious action.

This is something that went way back and not only by the Jews, although you can find some amazing passages throughout the

Old Testament where you see this. Solomon, when he gave the temple dedication, one of the most glorious passages in the

Old Testament, I suppose at the apex of his relationship with the Lord before he began going downhill for a time.

What is he doing? He's raising his hands to the heavens during the entire dedication. David would do this often. The prophets would do this often.

And so believing Jews, in other words, genuine, sincere believers in the

Old Testament would raise their hands in prayer and of course in the proclamation of God's word as well, but it wasn't unique to them.

Almost every false religion as well would do the same thing. The adherents of all the false religions would likewise raise their hands into the heavens regardless of the fact of whether their god was simply an idol of stone or wood or whatever it may be on the ground.

They had this strange intuition to look to the heavens and raise their hands to the heavens when they would pray to their false god sitting there that they had made with their own hands.

And so this was something that permeated religion all throughout human history up to the point when

Paul is writing this. And so that kind of begs the question, what is the difference in action between true believers and false religions?

What is going on? There's a similarity there. There is no doubt. Sometimes the critics will try, or the skeptics will try to point out the fact that Christianity is just a derivative religion of all these ancient things that are already in place and they'll point out some overlapping religious practices here, there, and everywhere.

And of course there's overlap even within Old Testament genuine religion versus what was happening.

You have very interesting parallels that God himself, as he's speaking through the prophets, brings where you can see there's a clear allusion to things that are happening over here in this pagan nation in the way they are worshiping.

God will borrow the language that they themselves use about their false deities and say, no, we're doing that over here, but it's the real thing.

So God was not afraid to borrow or steal from the concoctions of man -made religion.

And he would do that as an apologetic to say, what you're doing over there is vain and will lead to nothing.

I am the living God, the one that actually fulfills these things that your intuition is saying you should desire. Yeah, Dad, you have a thought?

I love the thought for Brother Otis there. And I would say there's probably more similarities than we may even realize with just kind of a cursory view of the

Old Testament. And not necessarily with contemporary false religions, but in the Old Testament, like in Canaan, in ancient

Canaan, you would see very interesting similarities that were deformities, yes.

Total defacement of religion, but it came from somewhere. And that's what

Dad is getting to. What were the roots of that? And it is an interesting note to remember that everything was oral up until the point when

Moses inscripturated God's word for the first time. And we've talked about that for many times. Why on earth would

God wait so long to actually put his words down on pen and paper? Well, there needed to be an alphabet.

There needed to be the invention of a legible and cogent alphabet that was not pictographs.

Many written languages prior to Moses, prior to the Egyptians, kind of revolutionizing many things, were pictures.

Well, men have a tendency to worship pictures. And so God didn't want his word written in pictures. He wanted them written in words.

And so you have Moses come on the scene and he begins to write them down as they're given by God and moved by the

Spirit. And he gives us the history of mankind in Genesis leading up to his own life. But the point is everything was oral before that.

And so you have the seeds of the true religion from the garden kind of spread out and make many streams.

And by man's will, by the way, they chose to defile it in many cases. There had to be decisions and choices made at various points to decide we're going to do it ourselves in these kinds of ways.

The Tower of Babel would be a great example of that. So we ask the question, what is the difference between true believers and false religions raising the hands in prayer?

And the answer to that, of course, is the heart. The heart that has been regenerated by God himself.

This is why Paul's phrase is one that encompasses more than simply raising your hands physically.

It may include that in a particular context, but that's not all he's referencing. He's talking about the right kind of attitude that is consistent with true godliness and virtue.

And that attitude displays itself in this act of public prayer. I'm going to give y 'all Calvin again.

I know I've quoted him a number of times in this study. And it's because there's just a number, every now and then, his commentary on a specific idea is just so good

I have to throw it in. And so this is John Calvin in his commentary of 1

Timothy 2, verse 8. Listen to this. He says, quote, Let us therefore learn that the attitude is in accordance with true godliness, provided that it be attended by the corresponding truth which is represented by it.

Namely, that we should lay aside carnal affections so that nothing may prevent our hearts from rising above the world.

So that, I'll end quote for a second, that is us, that is believers, that is how we should approach prayer with this kind of attitude.

Setting aside carnal affections so that nothing may prevent our hearts from being in the right place, being risen above the world.

Now listen to this. He continues, quote, But idolaters and hypocrites, and there's a distinction there and I want y 'all to take note of that because hypocrites may be coming in the name of Jesus.

Idolaters and hypocrites, when they lift up their hands in prayer, are apes.

For while they profess, by the outward symbol, that their minds are raised upwards, the former are fixed on wood and stone, as if God were shut up in them.

And the latter, wrapped up in either in useless anxieties or in wicked thoughts, cleave to the earth.

And therefore, by a gesture of an opposite meaning, they bear testimony against themselves. So just to put that in plain

English, when the Pharisees come up and they beat their chests and they put their hands in the air and they shout their praises to God and their prayers to God, saying,

Thank you that I am not like that sinner over there. That is a condemnation on their own heads. That is not what

Paul is talking about here. That is not a true religion. Why? Because it didn't start in the heart. If it did, they would be more like the contrite man that was on his face in that context saying,

Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. And so, men, hypocrites, idolaters that would dare lift their hands to the heavens to pray to either a false deity or in vain in the name of Christ are but apes in the words of John Calvin there.

So I thought you all would like that. Paul certainly had no more... I'll put it this way.

Remember this. Paul was a Pharisee of Pharisees prior to his conversion. In Philippians chapter 3, we get the full gambit of what his background was and it is incredible.

He doesn't have mere religious motion in mind here. He would be the last person on planet

Earth to ever be giving a vain religious motion to be doing because the motion in and of itself was somehow holy.

Lifting up the hands is not holy intrinsically. However, as with all displays of worship, whether we stand and sing, whether we bow our heads in prayer, or lift our hands in prayer, whether we sing hymns or psalms, or even speak the words of God himself, all of it is in vain if it is only done in motion.

It has to begin in the heart or else it means absolutely nothing. There's an interesting parallel rhetorically that the prophet

Isaiah uses in I think chapter 1, somewhere in chapter 1, verse 15 or something like that, where he talks about the hands being raised of Israel that are not holy but are bloody.

In other words, they are still going through the religious motions and raising their hands, but God does not receive it in any way, shape, or form because they're bloody hands, signifying their idolatry, signifying their murder, the killing of the prophets, their whoredoms, their harlotry, all of this stuff.

So, yes, they were lifting their hands in the temple and going through the religious motions and it was bloody in the sight of God.

It was not holy. Really interesting concept here. And so Paul certainly doesn't have any of these in mind when he penned these words.

Paul assumes when he says lifting their hands, holy hands everywhere, he assumes a genuine and pure heart being behind the raising of the hands in prayer to the

Lord. And then he goes on, and we'll finish the verse here, he goes on to include a qualifier.

He says to do this, to raise your hands, to raise holy hands in prayer, he says to do this without wrath and doubting or dissensions is another way you could say that.

Remember, what is Paul teaching this church at Ephesus? What are some of the things that are in view in this context already?

And, of course, by extension, what is he teaching all Christians throughout time but that would have been especially tough for his first century

Christian audience to grasp? We've already talked about it several times over. What is the thing he's trying to get across?

That salvation came not just to the Jew but to the Greek as well.

And he displays this in a two -fold argument. Number one, that we should not only pray for the salvation of our lost rulers, even the

Gentile ones, and he makes a point to mention that, we should not only pray for the salvation of our lost rulers, even if they're

Gentiles, but secondly, that God even desires for such men to be saved.

That is radical. Not only are we to pray for the salvation of these pagans, these

Gentiles, but God even desires for them to be saved. That is all baked into this argument that Paul has been making leading up to verse 8 to where he now ends by saying, do this without wrath and doubting, wrath and dissensions.

And all of that is still in view. There was a considerable amount of debate in the first century church that revolved around who could be welcomed into this new covenant and even if they did grant that Gentiles can come in, they might still need to be circumcised first or something.

Surely, right? Surely we have to bring over some of this stuff because this is what we've been doing for millennia.

And of course, this was such a hot topic. This was such a controversy that it required the first Christian council ever in Jerusalem.

And we read about this in Acts chapter 15, the Jerusalem council, where they have this debate. Does circumcision need to happen in order for the faith of a

Gentile to be genuine? Who does Paul take with him? We talked about this in our last study. He takes

Titus, the Greek, the young Greek man who is now a believer. He takes him with him to say, you can't tell me this guy needs to be circumcised because look at his faith.

This is genuine. This is real. He doesn't need these old covenant tokens that were merely a picture of something in order for this faith, in order for this belief to be genuine.

All of that happens. And so Paul, as he is now writing to Timothy, who interestingly enough, half

Greek, half Jew, he did get circumcised, not because it was necessary, but because Paul, in talking about his own ministry, says,

I have become all things to all men. He kind of carried that over a little bit with his successor, Timothy. And he was like, look, you could have a little bit more sway and maybe a little bit more of an authoritative punch if you say that you are honoring the tradition of your fathers, that being your

Jewish heritage that came down from your grandmother and your mother, Lois and Eunice. And so for Timothy, it was kind of strategic.

For Titus, Paul's like, don't do it. As a Greek, don't even think twice about it. In fact, come with me.

We're going to go to the council in Jerusalem. We're going to make this argument. This is not necessary. So this was extremely controversial.

And so I believe that this is Paul's way, at the very end of this section, of admonishing these types of disputes that were happening, perhaps in Ephesus, preemptively.

When you pray for the kings, for those in authority, even when they're

Gentiles, come at it with a pure heart, with a heart that's in the right place, not with wrath, not with dissensions, not with rumblings and murmurings, thinking, okay,

I'm going to pray for them because Paul told me to, but gosh, I really wish that we could keep this a pure religion, just within the ethnicity of our fathers.

Don't do that, Paul says. Do not come into prayer with that kind of attitude. I will, therefore, that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath, and without doubting.

So, that kind of wraps up this rather intricate section on prayer, as he is about to go into what will feel like a very different topic, but still closely related.

It will be spending a good number of weeks breaking down in verses 9 through 15. But there you go.

So there's verse 8, there's verses 1 through 8. Does anyone have any thoughts or anything they'd like to share? We have about four minutes left.

Yes, Mimi? Lifting up hands in the context of men praying, does this also apply to praise and worship?

Well, let me put it this way. In this specific context, we are talking about prayer as a part of the worship service.

Public prayers. Pastoral prayers, as some churches today call it. Could there be an application to worship?

Well, actually, in Hebrews, there's a better context in Hebrews that would be translated more of a one for one into worship.

Than in this particular passage. The short answer is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the raising of hands in worship to God.

This has been part of Christianity for the last 2 ,000 years. Just as much as the bowing of the head and the approaching

God with that particular form of reverence. Interestingly enough, both are reverent.

But both are coming at it from maybe a slightly different place.

I don't know how to describe it. When you had Christians throughout church history, but certainly during this time, raising their hands to the heavens, what were they doing?

This was their way of praising God. It was usually a part of their doxologies, their hymns, their worship.

But at the same time, you had the bowing of the head to signify submission and yielding to God as well.

Just two different ways of approaching God both in worship and in prayer. You should be doing that with holy hands.

You should be doing that with Christ in you. So then it's not just an outward act.

That is exactly right. Sometimes when you're in a group of people, and I grew up with this too, if we did go to churches, even at home when

I was around my grandmother, I would see her raising her hand. But when you go to churches where it is almost taboo to raise your hand to praise the

Lord, Even if you feel it, you might not do it. If you do that, and because of your surroundings, and you know the atmosphere that you're in is not conducive to that, although you may feel compelled to raise your hands in worship, that doubt is created.

There is a doubt there. I know we're talking about two different things.

Raising hands in prayer versus raising hands during worship. Both need to come with holding hands in worship.

That's right. They are connected, certainly. I would say one of the reasons why us

Baptists typically have an aversion to these kinds of things isn't because they aren't a good display of reverent worship.

They obviously are. In the Old Testament, it is predominantly that form, that outward form, and even in the

New Testament we see it. The reason we have an aversion to it is because of the unfortunate history of the charismatic movements that have stolen that type of...

I say stolen. You know what I mean. They have taken that and they have made it more of the public display in the way of the

Pharisees, where the more you do, the more external expression, the more effusions of this, that, and the other that you can bring, the more

Christian you are. The thing that we have to remember is, to your point, it does begin in the heart, and when it does, and that manifests itself in the lifting up of hands, that is a good and righteous thing, and it can be done appropriately, and when it is, it's beautiful.

Matt and I went to a business conference, go figure, but it was a

Christian business conference, and before every day began and before every new session began, we sang a psalm or a hymn, and it was a business conference.

It was, I think, 100 % men. I think literally all men were there, only men, and so it was kind of cool because you have the voices of a lot of men carrying these glorious hymns, which is something we don't experience that often because, of course, at the end of it, everyone goes to their own congregations, but at the end of each day, they would sing the doxology.

Now, keep in mind, this is a room of Presbyterians and Baptists, and many of them would raise their hands during the doxology, just like this.

There was no waving. There wasn't any theatrics, but it was a genuine lifting up of praise to God, to the heavens, in the manner of our forefathers, of the patriarchs themselves, and so what

I would say, Mimi, is it is unfortunate that there is that social pressure, especially in conservative churches, that if the

Spirit is leading you to do that, that you wouldn't, but at the same time, we always have to ask ourselves the question, where is the source?

Is this the Spirit? We know that people have, what's the word

I'm looking for? They've abused certain displays of public worship, and that's where the certain connotations come from, but that doesn't mean we need to let them just have it either.

Did you have a thought, Ash? Yeah. Yeah.

Like what you were saying earlier, because it's a worship of spontaneity and emotion.

That's exactly right. Rather than being one that's deep -rooted, like I know exactly what

I'm signifying, they're signifying a different… Well, theirs is about individualism.

The Hebrews passage is about order. It's literally, there's a church orderliness to it, even though that is part of it.

One of the greatest passages that anyone could look at for what does true worship look like is in Hebrews.

It's magnificent. Go ahead, Dad. Yes, I know where you're going with this.

Right. It's an excellent point.

It's an excellent point. I'm so glad you brought that up because it's worth remembering. 100 % of the time, without exception, in every single instance, even in the

Old Testament visions that prophets would have, which of course we don't have those anymore, but I'm saying, I'm just making the point, even in the most dramatic context that you can come up with, is the faculty of the person intact.

In other words, there is never a point in true religious action toward God in which the closing of the mind is necessary.

And that's what Dad's point is here, and it would absolutely carry over to the Hebrews passage too, Dad. There are parallels there.

One is about prayer, one's about worship, but there's a connection, obviously, both in public. 100 % retention of our mental faculty is always a part of it.

But not to the point where everything is mechanistic and we have it written down. Some liturgies, church liturgies, can get out of hand in that way, where they take the orderliness of it to a degree with which the spirit's gone.

So you don't go too far into that. You also can't just go with spontaneity to Ashton's point or else chaos ensues.

Let me end with Miss Bonnie because you raised your hand a minute ago and then we'll have to finish after that. When a dad's been gone for a long time, little children say...

Put those hands up. That's right. I love it. Oh, I'm glad we ended with that,

Miss Bonnie. I'm glad I saved that for last. Oh, go ahead.

I love that poem, by the way. Completely agree.

You're not trying to teach people. Absolutely, and that's a wonderful point as well.

And in fact, what is the context of this? It's the praying for the salvation of your leaders.

Not just the one you like either, but for the salvation of your leaders, which is what?

It's all about grace. It has nothing to do with your pet doctrine like you were just talking about.

So that's a great thought there too. Well, let's close in prayer because we are now a minute over. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this wonderful day, for bringing us together and giving us yet another opportunity to open up the pages of Scripture and to make some progress in this amazing study of your apostles' first epistle to Timothy.

We thank you so much for the practical nature of it, but also the fact that it is so infused with these deep doctrinal truths and realities that we get to put in practice.

It's just amazing. We thank you for it, and we ask that you continue to bless the study as we move through it. Please be with us in the service to come and bless our fellowship for the remainder of the day.